Roy AGNEW (1891-1944)
Rhapsody (1928) [5:41]
Toccata (1933) [3:24]
Two Pieces for Piano (1931) [3:11]
Three Preludes (1927) [5:10]
A Dance Impression (1927) [2:13]
Drifting Mists (1931) [3:05]
Sonata (1929) [13:14]
Etude (1924) [2:43]
Three Poems (1927)
Sonata Poème (1929, completed 1935) [10:56]
Three Lyrics (1927) [6:09]
Elf Dance: Etude (1928) [2:13]
A May Day (1927) [1:37]
Australian Forest Pieces (1913) [11:13]
Stephanie McCallum (piano)
rec. 2019, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC0496 [77:42]
Roy Agnew has not evaded the recording microphone – one thinks, in particular, of Larry Sitsky’s disc made over two decades ago (review) – but this new release charts his piano music as possibly never before. His essentially romantic muse drew from several tributaries. There was the English modality of the Rhapsody, for example, and the fluid virtuosity of the Toccata. He was perfectly capable to play off overt contrasts in the 1931 Two Pieces where the introspection of Whither is followed by the full-bloodied intensity of Exaltation. If this diptych seems too conventionally bipartite for comfort, there’s always the slightly earlier Three Preludes of 1931. Here the lodestar is Scriabin, not least in the stormy central prelude. Another of Agnew’s interests was jazz and A Dance Impression of 1927 sounds a little like Constant Lambert or Gershwin with its lightly twisting jazz elements.
His gift for compression is audible throughout this selection, from the three-minute Drifting Mists – predictably impressionist, and an atmospheric nature study – to the Rachmaninovian chording of the Etude of 1924. The Three Poems were dedicated to his first composition teacher in Sydney, Alfred Hill, and are refined, small-scale and largely unadventurous but the Three Lyrics, written in the same year, are, as Stephanie McCallum’s comprehensive notes make plain, redolent of Debussy – the first and second - whilst the third has a School of Grainger feel about it (it’s called The Happy Lad).
The Sonata Poème shows a similar sense of freedom, with an admixture of Scriabin-infused drama and exuberant lyricism. It is, to me, a more congenial work than the 1929 Sonata, a highly professional but rather unrelieved and workmanlike piece. This disc certainly doesn’t overlook his character studies – there’s a droll Elf Dance and A May Day. The disc ends with early Agnew, the 1913 Australian Forest Pieces, his first published composition. There are six bagatelles, of which probably only the quietly atmospheric Night in the Forest gives much indication of the talent yet to emerge.
Most of these pieces make premiere appearance on disc in this recital. Only the Toccata, Drifting Mists, the 1929 Sonata and Sonata Poème have been recorded before. McCallum is a vibrant and sensitive exponent of Agnew’s music, never inflating it, but drawing its profile with poetic discretion. The recording is a touch hard, to my ears, but not unflattering to her tonal resources. Though Agnew’s piano music is variable in quality it’s good to have so much of it available here in such sympathetic performances.
Jonathan Woolf
